Editor's note: Detroit Public Schools Community District provided updated information this afternoon, saying the data provided at this morning's meeting was inaccurate. The percentage of tests to be cut is actually 70%, it said.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District is moving ahead with plans to cut the number of tests students have to take by about 70%.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, who began the job May 23, said today that one resounding concern he has heard from teachers is that there's too much testing in the district. The district can't control what tests are required by the state. But it can control district testing.

Vitti said the district would go from administering 186 tests to administering 57. Some months — October, November and March — would have no required testing.

"We have whittled it down to essentially what is required at the state level ... and what is required for teacher evaluations," Vitti said.

"That is awesome," she said. "That will be wonderful news to my staff's ears."

Deborah Hunter-Harvill, the subcommittee chair and a former school superintendent, said less testing will free up more time for developing instructional practices.

Ivy Bailey, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, said teachers have become "sick and tired of all the testing," in the district.

"Now that gives them the opportunity to be about the business of educating the students," Bailey said.

And, she said, it gives teachers breathing room to prepare students for the tests that matter.

"When you have one test after another one, it's hard to get kids prepared," Bailey said.

Meanwhile, the district is making another significant change — moving end-of-year exams to after the state's Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress is given in April and May. Previously, the exams were given before the state test.

That, Vitti said, left students tired and "led to excessive testing."

Earlier this year, the Detroit Parent Network pushed back against testing, urging parents to opt their children out of taking state exams, arguing that the results were too often being used to punish their schools. At the time, some parents also complained about excessive testing.

School closure plans

Also Monday, Vitti said a lawsuit the district filed against the state over its plans to close chronically low-performing schools is close to being settled.

The board sued the state School Reform Office in March, two months after that office identified 38 schools statewide for potential closure because they had ranked in the bottom 5% academically for three straight years. Twenty-four of those schools — including eight that were part of the now-dissolved Education Achievement Authority, the state's reform district — are in DPSCD.

DPSCD is one of several districts that sued the reform office, and the suits were consolidated.

Vitti said the judge in the lawsuit — which is before the Michigan Court of Claims — has suspended ruling to give the two sides an opportunity to negotiate a settlement.

The lawsuit questioned the reform office's ability to close district schools. But before the state agency could make good on its promise to force closure, the Michigan Department of Education stepped in to negotiate partnership agreements with school districts — holding them accountable and working with them to help improve the schools.

Vitti said today that the settlement is still being negotiated. But it would make clear that the reform office couldn't identify additional low-performing schools for closure.

A final settlement agreement likely will go to the full board at its regular monthly meeting Aug. 15.